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When a person is able to see the end of their goal, the final struggle to reach it becomes easier.
The moment the possibility of clearing this game became a reality in his head, the fatigue from fighting the dark mage washed away completely.
‘This isn’t the time to be sitting around like this. We have to reach the Queen’s nest before any more additional troops are produced!’
Professor rolled up the completed report and tied it with a string, then called the four Level 2 and Level 3 mages and handed it to them.
“Do you remember the path that we took?”
“Yes….? We just traveled through a straight path, and there aren’t any major splits in the road.”
“Then take this report and take the road back to the main headquarters of the Light’s Order in Kingsland.”
The mages wore a shocked expressions in response to Professor’s order.
“That means… you want us to go back?”
“Wait! Do you understand what you are saying? You know that every person is essential right now!”
“Gramps. Let’s not fight over this. Let’s be honest. We all knew from this fight that taking the Level 2 mages with us would only be more of a burden.”
“Ahem….”
The two Level 2 mages turned their heads as if frustrated, but it was true. Honestly, aside from pulling up some water at the opening of the village, the Level 2 and Level 3 mages did close to nothing. No, since Ottoman put more effort into spreading the spell in order to match the level of the two, they were more negative. Although it was in order to save mana, if it was an actual urgent situation, they wouldn’t even have used a method that took the long way around.
After holding them back like that, they entered the village and KOed after puking from the horrid site. And thanks to that, Notum, who has the ability to tank against 10 large undead, was left behind. He did push her back to a safer spot since she was a Hero Unit, but he would have still taken her if the mages weren’t there. It would have been much easier to fight Woolman if she had been there.
As Professor calmly explained the circumstances, the anger and frustration on the mages’ faces slowly turned to embarrassment. It’s always harder to accept the harsh truth.
“This is just the beginning of the enemy’s territory. The opponent was strong, but he was still just a single dark mage. From here on, the situation is only going to get worse, and we won’t even have time to rest like we are right now, and I can’t guarantee your safety. Please go back. I bet you that if we continue like this, Mage Ottoman is going to die trying to protect you all.”
Yes, Level 3 mages are strong enough to protect themselves, so they may be useful. But from this point on, it’s actual enemy territory, making it extremely hard to take the carriage with them. The squad’s combat power isn’t always the most important factor for a mission to succeed. If they are able to move covertly by leaving those four, then it’s the right call to leave them.
“…Hah. Alright. As you said, we’ll depart here and return to the…”
“Ah, wait.”
Scribble scribble—
Professor quickly scribbled something onto a piece of paper, then placed it inside the pocket of a mage.
“Although I’m an F rank, it’s still a recommendation letter from an official mercenary, so it should be of use. If there isn’t a problem after delivering the report, go to the Silver Cry Mercenary Guild. You’ll have something to do there.”
After saying that, he glanced back to see Ottoman turn his head and cough sheepishly. He was most likely worried about his students since they spent almost all of their time in the mage tower. He could clearly see the worry written on his face, but this should solve the problem. The mercenaries would greet mages with open arms because of their rarity. And they’ll come out of their cave once they roll around with everyone else there.
‘More than that, the church will understand the meaning of their return after a battle like this. It’ll be a sort of protest to them to send new, useful people instead of killing innocents.’
He realized the importance of priest-type members in this fight. I’ll send back two Level 2 and two Level 3 mages, so please just send us one decent priest! If you guys don’t send us a priest even after reading that report, the Light’s Order is an asshole! I’m going to tell Ro Haram! You said they’d listen if I prayed!
So as Professor desperately prayed with the relic tightly in his grasp, the mages finished preparing for the journey back and headed towards the village entrance.
“I hope everyone stays safe on the journey! Mr. Warrior, Sir Ottoman! And everyone else!”
“Master! You have to come back safe and sound to us!”
“Be careful! Do not worry about me!”
“You have to make it back safely and deliver that to the church! Please! Our lives depend on that reaching them!”
‘Cleric! Priest! Paladin! Monk! Light Spear Guardians!’
And so, with Ottoman’s sad farewell and Professor’s desperate pleas on their backs, the four mages left on the path they came from.
Ba-da-dunk! Ba-da-dunk!
After parting with the mages, the group decided to move right away, although they were a bit tired. Even if the Light of Nelphia had purified the place, it was a little uncomfortable resting where malice had been flowing densely just minutes ago, so they decided to find a proper resting place, even if it meant getting hit by a little rain.
They detached the two horses from the carriage for Aldrich and Ottoman to ride on, and the others ran alongside them.
“Uh… I can’t help feeling a little sorry for you all…”
“It’s alright. This body needs to be worked to the ground every single day anyway. Borka? Notum?”
“Werewolves do not tire of this.”
“Grwuh. Running is fun.”
“Did you hear that? We’re all used to this stuff, so you don’t have to worry. Just take care of your own body. It’s pretty tiring to ride on a horse, isn’t it?”
“It would be absurd of me to complain about riding on a horse next to people that are running at the speed of a horse…”
That was what Ottoman said, but there was a definite limit to what his frail body could handle.
‘It’s about time to head out. And I can log out safely if we make a proper camp.’
Looking at the clock, it was about time to eat dinner, so after lighting a campfire and setting up a tent to make a makeshift camp, Professor put his hand up to the logout button.
He was thinking of staying a bit longer, but then the external calling alarm flashed in front of his face.
‘They probably called me to eat dinner.’
Confirming that it was around dinner time, Professor’s consciousness slowly started to fade away.
Whooosh—!
While it took time to get out of the game, Gyosu imagined what was set up for dinner.
‘Vex and Ian said that they were going to look around Area 47. Then that veggie-hating guy might have traded some of their stuff for jerky. If I cut the jerky into thin slices and boil it together with vegetables….’
Bangbangbangbang!
“Professor! PROFESSORRRR!!!”
Clunk! Clunk!
But the first thing he felt after his senses came back were screams and clattering, which broke his hopes of a peaceful dinner.
“Do you think this is the time to be playing games, Park Gyosu, you bastard??!!!!!!!”
Ian’s voice. His incredibly scared voice was calling his name while shaking the game pod aggressively.
[Are there enemies?]
‘Hyde, check the surroundings to see if I missed anything.’
Pshhhhhk—
The door opened, and the first thing he saw when he swiftly rolled out of the pod were Vex and Ian.
‘It doesn’t look like….. an enemy attack.’
But it did definitely look like they were attacked by something. Vex was shivering in the corner with messy hair, and Ian’s clothes were tattered, with one of his shoes completely missing.
He’d seen a similar sight before. A few years ago, during winter. That reminded him these guys looked around Area 47 for the first time today.
The incredibly familiar sight made Professor release his tense position.
‘It was that, wasn’t it?’
A sigh of relief left Professor’s mouth, and looking at Professor’s calm attitude made Ian and Vex even more frustrated.
“P-Professor! We have to leave this place! Hurry!”
“Damn you two. We don’t have to go anywhere, you bird heads.”
“T-there was a monster! I saw it with my own two eyes! There’s a monster overwhelmingly stronger than the abominations in Area 45 outside there!”
“Ahhhhhhh!! It’s going to come and kill us! It’ll eat us alive! Ahhhhhhhhh!”
“Damn it, who said Area 47 was safe? We ran right away because the firepower that we had prepared was obviously not enough, but that thing was definitely chasing us! Gyosu, take care of Vex! I’ll check the storage to find something that’ll…”
Ignoring the commotion the two were making, Gyosu calmly stretched his tense body and then turned to Koduro.
“Koduro, can you go get me some water? Cold, please.”
“I’ve set it next to the pod.”
“Oh, nice.”
“I’m a Learning AI, after all. I remembered the procedure used when Master was in that state.”
“H-Hepburn! We have to run away! The instincts that have saved me dozens of times are telling me! We can’t win that thing! It’s absolutely impossible to—”
Splooosh!
“Asppphfft!”
Splosh!
“Cough!”
Clang— cla— clang…
“You absolute pain in the asses.”
After spraying the water in the bucket evenly on the two, he let out a string of curses at the two dumbfounded men.
“Why can’t you guys listen for the first time once in your life? Why?!”
“Uh, mmmm, is this a dream? My head feels a bit fuzzy…”
“That’s why I gave you the notebook with all of the things you need to know about Area 47. And I told you to read it over at least ten times, you idiots! If you read it properly even once, you wouldn’t be in this mess, you know that?”
“Huh…huh?”
Looking down at the two men, who still seemed to be in a daze, Professor massaged his temples.
“The thing you met is a Type 3 mutant named ‘Old Picture.’ Yes, it’s dangerous, and yes, we need to leave this place if you mess with it.”
“R-right? It wasn’t… wasn’t a dream. There was… monster, doll, no, corpse, hanging with the massive monster—”
Flick!
“Ouch!”
Professor flicked the forehead of Vex, who was still talking nonsense and then threw them the towels that Koduro had brought him.
“It is a dangerous guy, but those mutants are ones that are raised in Area 47. That dangerous guy is why Area 47 is several times safer than before.”
“Raise… a mutant?”
“Yeah.”
Plop!
Completely worn out thanks to the two who made a ruckus right after he came out of the pod, Gyosu threw himself onto the old sofa and continued talking.
“To be exact, it’s more like everyone living in Area 47, including the Dome, agreed to comply with the guy’s movement pattern. Oy, Ian.”
“Uh… huh?”
“Did you shoot it? The monster?”
“Um… uh…”
“Sigh, that aggressive bastard.”
Seeing that he was even more out of his mind than Vex, Gyosu got up and dug a cigarette and lighter out of Ian’s pocket and lit it in his mouth. It must be some sort of instinct because Ian sucked on it right away. Looking at him, a small drool slipped out of Gyosu’s mouth.
Sippppp—
That was because Ian was sucking on the cigarette like a baby desperately clinging to its mother’s milk.
As the dense smoke shot out of his nose, he could see the light come back into Ian’s eyes.
“Hahhhh, mmm. Thanks. My head was about to shatter right there. What did you ask me?”
“Is this guy some kind of smoke-engine train? Did you shoot the monster?”
“Of course… I did.”
“Where? The gross-looking main body? Or the doll-looking thing that was hanging on the front?”
“The main body. I aimed for what looked like the head, but it didn’t even budge.”
Phew.
Gyosu let out another sigh of relief. Thank goodness. If he had shot the actual body, then he would have needed to go around Area 47 apologizing to all of the survivors.
“And because the guns weren’t working, I used the explosives we had to collapse the building and escape.”
“AGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!”
And the following words that came out of Ian’s mouth caused a loud wail to come out of Gyosu’s mouth.
“Y-you collapsed… the building?”
“Uh… wasn’t I supposed to do that? It was pretty effective. It started screaming out when the building collapsed and stopped following us.”
Of course, you weren’t supposed to. That place was replicated to suit the tastes of that monster.
“K-Koduro?”
“This is the ‘Area 47 Events Community Page.’”
As if he knew what came next, Koduro showed Gyosu the community screen he had prepared.
Find the original at "pawread dot com".
======
★ Which Motherf#@)**&^+)(**[email protected]!! touched Old Picture! (12)
★ I’m a witness. It was an intentional explosion, not an accident (78)
: Which retard messed with the popo this time?
: Current situation at the central complexes
: God [email protected]—— I had to go outside tomorrow, can’t anymore I guess.
: Did the Raptors crawl in and bomb the place?
: The Dome said that they’ll make repairs right away. They said anyone free tomorrow should come out.
: Whoever it is, those bastards are dead meat if they get caught. I’ve memorized their plate number
: I bet it was done on purpose by guys from another Area
======
Tremble tremble—
Gyosu’s two arms holding onto the screen shook like an aspen leaf.
“……Hey buddies, we have money, right?”
Professor scanned the Community with dead eyes and then spoke to the two, who finally seemed to realize they had done something wrong.
“You two have to go out with me tomorrow.”
“T—to where?”
To Vex’s question, a single tear fell from Gyosu’s eyes.
“To risk our lives and pay for damages.”
Blaming himself for sending these two idiots out into the world by themselves, Gyosu swallowed back the tears of fury in his eyes.